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           Use Emergency Bypass to Circumvent Do Not Disturb for VIPs

   Josh Centers

   Here's a common problem: you're settling down to watch a movie and
   don't want your iPhone interrupting you with unnecessary updates that
   can wait. But you also want to receive potentially important calls and
   messages'perhaps from an elderly relative. Or maybe you're out for the
   evening and don't want to be distracted from your phone'¦ unless it's
   the babysitter. Here's how to meet those contradictory goals.

Enable Do Not Disturb to Block Notifications

   We assume that all TidBITS readers are generally familiar with Do Not
   Disturb, but if not, let's review the basics. It's a feature that
   silences your iPhone temporarily so you aren't interrupted by the
   constant cavalcade of notifications. The easiest way to access it for
   occasional use is through Control Center'it's the button with the moon
   icon.

   Tap the button to turn Do Not Disturb on and off. If you press and hold
   the button, you see options to turn Do Not Disturb off automatically,
   which we covered in depth in '[1]Inside iOS 12: Do Not Disturb Learns
   to Turn Itself Off' (19 September 2018).

   You can also enable Do Not Disturb from Settings > Do Not Disturb, but
   more important are the additional options there. Most necessary are the
   scheduling options, which let you automatically turn Do Not Disturb on
   and off at certain times. Everyone should set a schedule to avoid
   having sleep disrupted by random notifications.

   There are other useful options here, like Do Not Disturb while Driving
   (see '[2]iOS 11 to Bring Do Not Disturb While Driving,' 21 August
   2017), but we mostly want to draw your attention to the Allow Calls
   From setting, which lets you allow calls from a certain group of
   contacts to punch through the Do Not Disturb wall. But what about text
   messages? That's where Emergency Bypass comes in.

Use Emergency Bypass to Circumvent Do Not Disturb

   What's the difference between Allow Calls From and Emergency Bypass? In
   essence, you can use Emergency Bypass to allow both calls and text
   messages. However, it's not as straightforward as Allow Calls From.
   There's no mention of Emergency Bypass in the Do Not Disturb settings,
   you have to find and enable it for individual contacts, and you
   shouldn't confuse it with the unrelated Emergency Contacts used for
   Medical ID notifications.

   Here's how to enable Emergency Bypass for phone calls or text messages:
    1. Open a contact card in either the Contacts app or the Phone app.
    2. Tap Edit in the upper-right corner.
    3. Tap Ringtone or Text Tone.
    4. Enable Emergency Bypass.
    5. Tap Done.

   There is one potentially unexpected caveat. If your Mac is awake and
   running Messages, it will likely capture text messages before they're
   sent to your iPhone. In most situations, that's sensible'you don't want
   text message notifications to make sounds on every Apple device you own
   if you're actively using your Mac. Obviously, if you're away from your
   Mac, it should be sleeping, but if that's not true for some reason, it
   could prevent messages from arriving on your iPhone regardless of
   Emergency Bypass.

What about Overriding Emergency Bypass on Occasion?

   The only thing to keep in mind is that Emergency Bypass will cause your
   iPhone to make sounds even if Do Not Disturb is on and the ring/silent
   switch is enabled. That's the point, of course, but there are
   situations where silence is essential'a recital, a play, a meditation
   class. In other words, if Emergency Bypass overrides Do Not Disturb,
   how can you override Emergency Bypass every so often? Editing
   individual contact cards is clearly too much work. We found two levels
   of workaround:
     * Silence Everything: If it's imperative that your iPhone and Apple
       Watch not make any sound, the brute force workaround is to use
       Control Center to turn on Airplane Mode and turn off Wi-Fi'both are
       necessary. That will cut your iPhone off from the outside world,
       ensuring that no notifications can cause it to make sound. You'll
       still want Do Not Disturb enabled to avoid sounds caused by alarms,
       timers, and apps.
     * Silence Text Messages: If you're worried only about text messages
       making sounds, when enabling Emergency Bypass for a contact, set
       their Text Tone to None, and make sure you've selected a Vibration
       instead. That will guarantee that text messages don't generate
       iPhone sounds. For those who also have an Apple Watch, you must
       also go to Watch > My Watch > Messages, turn on Custom
       notifications and disable Sound. That's necessary because the Apple
       Watch doesn't honor the contact's Text Tone of None when Emergency
       Bypass is enabled.

Room for Improvement

   In our testing, we discovered that Emergency Bypass is finicky and
   complicated. Apple could reimplement Do Not Disturb and Emergency
   Bypass in a much more streamlined way.

   For starters, it's virtually impossible to manage which contacts have
   Emergency Bypass enabled, because there's no central list. You would be
   well-served today to add all your Emergency Bypass contacts to a group
   in Contacts, purely so you could more easily disable the setting for
   those people in the future without having to dig through all likely
   contacts.

   We suggest that Apple should replace the superfluous Allow Calls From
   feature and replace it with a Settings > Do Not Disturb > Emergency
   Bypass section or screen. That interface should provide a master switch
   to enable or disable Emergency Bypass entirely, plus separate options
   to specify which contacts qualify for Emergency Bypass. The master
   Emergency Bypass switch, when enabled, would let the specified contacts
   break through Do Not Disturb's cone of silence. When disabled, Do Not
   Disturb would apply to everyone equally.

   It makes sense to separate those contacts who can break through Do No
   Disturb by calling you from those who would instead message you. You
   might have a contact who messages you constantly but would call only in
   an emergency. And we all know people who call randomly without
   messaging, so it would make sense to force those people to message
   first if there was something urgent.

   Finally, as long as we're making suggestions surrounding Do Not
   Disturb, it would be helpful if it was possible to set up an auto-reply
   for Do Not Disturb that works like the auto-reply feature for Do Not
   Disturb While Driving. It would be handy for informing contacts that
   you're using Do Not Disturb instead of letting them worry that you're
   just ignoring them. Additionally, a contact could then respond with
   'urgent' to break through.

   In the end, how you control the extent to which your iPhone can
   interrupt you has evolved organically, from the simple ring/silent
   switch to Do Not Disturb to Emergency Bypass contact settings, and it's
   time for Apple to revisit the interface and user experience.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://tidbits.com/2018/09/19/inside-ios-12-do-not-disturb-learns-to-turn-itself-off/
   2. https://tidbits.com/2017/08/21/ios-11-to-bring-do-not-disturb-while-driving/

   Hidden links:
   3. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2021/04/Control-Center-DND.jpg
   4. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2021/04/Emergency-Bypass-setting.jpg
   5. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2021/04/Airplane-Mode-for-ultimate-DND.jpg
   6. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2021/04/Emergency-Bypass-bypass-for-Messages.jpg

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